Obama's Victory In Context Of History

Douglas Brinkley knows his presidents.

And the presidential historian and CBS News analyst understated that Tuesday was "quite a night. I stayed up until about 2:30 watching it all, and you just have to think that the impossible dream has come true."

Brinkley told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Wednesday, "We love in this country Horatio Alger stories, that Booker T. Washington's autobiography was up from slavery, and in many ways, Barack Obama's comes up from the Jim Crow system in the United States to be president.

"We began the 20th century with Booker T. Washington going into the White House just to eat, and he got lampooned, and T.R. (Teddy Roosevelt) got lampooned for it. ... You should see the newspaper articles from the South, and the things they said about Roosevelt for doing that. And now, the Obamas are in the White House, African-American children will be playing on the White House lawn. It's a very big moment. If slavery was the original American sin, this has become the redemption hour."

Brinkley called Obama's quick rise from Illinois state senator to the Oval Office "very unlikely. Even a year ago, everybody was saying Hillary Clinton had it, that it was not his time, that he was jumping the gun, that the Clintons were this power force in the Democratic party. A year later, the Clintons are minor characters in this drama.

"Barack Obama won because whoever met him liked him. And I think you have to say Iowa worked not just for Obama, but I think our country's got to start embracing the Iowa caucus. Every year, it's 'the caucus, the caucus, the caucus,' and that's what Barack Obama did well. He got in the living rooms in Davenport and Dubuque and all those towns, and people there liked him, they embraced him. And the thought that an African-American would win in a largely white state like Iowa, that's what jump-started all this.

"He always had a good base. Illinois has a lot of electoral votes. He knew he could win that. But the journey out of Iowa's been remarkable, and ... by the time of (the) South Carolina (primary), African-Americans started pouring out in droves for him -- I saw some stats like 97, 98 percent of African-Americans were behind Barack Obama."

Smith observed that the crowd of more than 100,000 in Chicago's Grant Park to see Obama's victory speech was, "to use a Jesse Jackson phrase, 'a rainbow coalition.' "

"A rainbow and a youth coalition," Brinkley agreed. "We keep talking about race but -- what a generational change. I'm in my 40S. Barack Obama's in his 40S. It's the first guy we've had in the game like this. Suddenly, you're feeling, if you're in your 40s now, 'Wow, we have a new responsibility we haven't had before!' It's scary and exciting."